W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist, as well as being very active in politics and culture, and a student of magic and mythology. He founded Dublin's Abbey Theatre and became a senator of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1928. In 1923, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. His poetry explores Irish mythology and history, classical civilization and modern culture and politics from both public and personal viewpoints.
The poem in detail
The poem starts with the old mother's telling how she starts her day at dawn - her first job is to light the fire (necessary, even in summer, for the rest of her jobs). She kneels down and blows to get it started - in 19th century Ireland this would probably be a slow-burning peat fire. The next three jobs are scrubbing (using water heated over the fire, perhaps), baking (making the staple food, bread) and then sweeping up. (Can you see why the four tasks should be in this order?) By the time the work is done, the stars are coming out again - "beginning to blink and peep".
The young people meanwhile are able to "lie long", dreaming of "matching" ribbons on their clothes and in their hair. Not only are they lazy, but they get upset if the wind disturbs their hair slightly. The poem ends with the image of the fire's going cold. This may be a metaphor for the loss of energy that comes with old age. It is certainly a reminder of how the next day will start - and every other day.
The poet's method
Like many of the poems in this collection, The Song of the Old Mother is in rhyming pairs of lines. The metre here is of the kind called anapaestic (two unstressed syllables, followed by a stressed one) - you will find this metre in Browning's The Laboratory and Hopkins' Inversnaid. Yeats does not end every line with a full anapaest, but sometimes uses an iambic foot - this give one less unstressed syllable but the last syllable is still
stressed.
The Old Mother uses a simple and familiar vocabulary, naming common household chores.
Like the speaker in Hardy's The Man He Killed (and unlike the speaker in My Last Duchess) this is not a specific and named or unique individual. Rather she may represent, in some way, all old women in all times and places.
The last but one (penultimate) line contains what is almost a proverb - at the least it is presented as a general or universal truth:
"I must work because I am old"
You might like to think about whether this is, or ever has been, generally true.
Responding to the poem
Ask an expert
Show the poem to a person who is a lot older than you - perhaps a grandparent or neighbour - and ask him or her to tell you more about any of the chores that they also had to do.
Is it still true?
Perhaps the nature of the tasks has changed - but is it still true (was it ever true) that old people have a harder life than the young?
Rewriting the song
You might like to try writing different versions of, or responses to, the song - perhaps in the same style or as prose accounts. Some possibilities would be:
the song of the lazy teenager
The Song of the Old Mother (21st century style)
the song of the single parent
the song of the yuppie commuter (the song of the gridlocked driver?)
Perhaps you could choose your own - either a typical representative person (as in Yeats' poem) or perhaps a comic stereotype.
William Butler Yeats: The Song of the Old Mother
W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist, as well as being very active in politics and culture, and a student of magic and mythology. He founded Dublin's Abbey Theatre and became a senator of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1928. In 1923, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. His poetry explores Irish mythology and history, classical civilization and modern culture and politics from both public and personal viewpoints.
The poem in detail
The poem starts with the old mother's telling how she starts her day at dawn - her first job is to light the fire (necessary, even in summer, for the rest of her jobs). She kneels down and blows to get it started - in 19th century Ireland this would probably be a slow-burning peat fire. The next three jobs are scrubbing (using water heated over the fire, perhaps), baking (making the staple food, bread) and then sweeping up. (Can you see why the four tasks should be in this order?) By the time the work is done, the stars are coming out again - "beginning to blink and peep".
The young people meanwhile are able to "lie long", dreaming of "matching" ribbons on their clothes and in their hair. Not only are they lazy, but they get upset if the wind disturbs their hair slightly. The poem ends with the image of the fire's going cold. This may be a metaphor for the loss of energy that comes with old age. It is certainly a reminder of how the next day will start - and every other day.
The poet's method
Like many of the poems in this collection, The Song of the Old Mother is in rhyming pairs of lines. The metre here is of the kind called anapaestic (two unstressed syllables, followed by a stressed one) - you will find this metre in Browning's The Laboratory and Hopkins' Inversnaid. Yeats does not end every line with a full anapaest, but sometimes uses an iambic foot - this give one less unstressed syllable but the last syllable is still
stressed.
The Old Mother uses a simple and familiar vocabulary, naming common household chores.
Like the speaker in Hardy's The Man He Killed (and unlike the speaker in My Last Duchess) this is not a specific and named or unique individual. Rather she may represent, in some way, all old women in all times and places.
The last but one (penultimate) line contains what is almost a proverb - at the least it is presented as a general or universal truth:
"I must work because I am old"
You might like to think about whether this is, or ever has been, generally true.
Responding to the poem
Ask an expert
Show the poem to a person who is a lot older than you - perhaps a grandparent or neighbour - and ask him or her to tell you more about any of the chores that they also had to do.
Is it still true?
Perhaps the nature of the tasks has changed - but is it still true (was it ever true) that old people have a harder life than the young?
Rewriting the song
You might like to try writing different versions of, or responses to, the song - perhaps in the same style or as prose accounts. Some possibilities would be:
the song of the lazy teenager
The Song of the Old Mother (21st century style)
the song of the single parent
the song of the yuppie commuter (the song of the gridlocked driver?)
Perhaps you could choose your own - either a typical representative person (as in Yeats' poem) or perhaps a comic stereotype.